


Not So Much Ineffable, As Unnecessary

by AstroGirl



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24048661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: They don't ever say it.  Not directly.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 74
Collections: Gen Prompt Bingo Round 18





	Not So Much Ineffable, As Unnecessary

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Gen Prompt Bingo, for the prompt "direct." Although it's actually about _not_ saying things directly. Well, this isn't the first time I've come at a prompt backwards like that, and it probably won't be the last.
> 
> My own favorite headcanon, I think, varies back and forth between something like this and the idea that once they properly get together, Aziraphale goes around happily introducing Crowley to everyone as "my lover," no matter how much Crowley groans and begs him to stop. Maybe someday I'll write that version, too. :)

They don't ever say it. Not directly.

They don't need to.

What they do, in the days after Armageddon, is this: They spend time – as much as they want, as much as they have – in each other's company. In restaurants, in parks, in theaters and museums and bars. In the back of Aziraphale's bookshop. In a stark, forbidding flat in Mayfair that seems less stark and forbidding by the day. They feel a pleasant ease in each other's company that is not new, that is very far from new, but which is different in being uninterrupted, now, by obligation, or guilt, or fear.

Or if it is, if for a while Aziraphale still sometimes finds himself saying, "My side won't be happy about that," or "Oh, we shouldn't," or even, "But you're a _demon_ ," Crowley merely waits, with a patience he has extended to no other being in six thousand years of his existence, and the moment passes.

The moment always passes.

They do this, as well: They sit beside each other, anywhere they like. Aziraphale abandons his reading chair one day to join Crowley where he sprawls, loose-limbed, in his accustomed place on the sofa. It is the simplest thing in the world, from there, to sit closer, and closer still. It is the simplest thing in the world to touch each other. A companionable hand on a shoulder, or an elbow gripped delightedly as they laugh. A hand clasped warmly in a hand. Fingers stroking softly through hair, a palm resting lightly against a cheek, a head nestled comfortably against a shoulder or a chest, or a lap.

It does not feel new. It doesn't feel strange. It feels like _them_. Only like them.

Once, in an only slightly tipsy moment, they find their faces close together, tilted towards each other like flowers towards the sun, like a fork poised above a tempting new dessert, and it is also the simplest thing in the world, the most natural, for them to kiss.

That _does_ feel new. New, like the first time they ate together, the first time they drank. Like the time they stopped the end of the world.

They don't talk about it afterward, except to say, "Well, that was a thing," and "I enjoyed that." They don't need to, to know they want to do it again.

Once, they sit in a park and watch young lovers caressing on a bench, all hands and mouths, radiating love and lust in quantities one needs no supernatural senses to detect, seemingly oblivious to the world around them until, at last, they steal off to find a private place to do what humans do.

And they look at each other, angel and demon, and they wonder aloud, "What do you think it's like?"

This is not something they were made for. It's not something that comes easily and naturally to them, not like everything else they've done. But when they try it, fumbling and unpracticed, they discover they enjoy it. The sensuality of it, the cooperative effort. The sheer, earthly _physicality_. The fact that it feels so utterly, privately _theirs_ , with nothing of Heaven or Hell about it at all.

They don't yearn for it, not the way most of the humans seem to. They don't burn for it. But it is a lovely, fun thing to do together, late at night, when the restaurants and the theaters are closed.

They talk to each other, in the act. They discuss what they like, what they don't, what they'll do, what they won't. Discuss completely irrelevant things, sometimes, when they let themselves get distracted. They joke and they banter. They murmur words of encouragement. They gasp out their pleasure. They call each other's names.

They don't say "I love you." Not during, not after. It never occurs to them to need to.

Aziraphale does take to calling Crowley "my dear," which isn't entirely new, and "darling," which is, but somehow doesn't feel it. Crowley calls Aziraphale "angel," which means exactly the same thing as it always has.

The humans make assumptions, of course, and put words to those assumptions, and use them. "Is your boyfriend coming?" they'll say, casual and unthinking. Or, "How is your partner doing?" They take to using that word themselves, sometimes, for the humans' benefit. "Partner" seems right, seems apt in so many ways. They are partners. They have been partners, in some sense, since the beginning.

When they decide, at last, to leave London, they talk about the decision endlessly. They talk about where, and when, and how. About what to bring and what to leave, and whether it's possible to relocate the entire contents of a Soho bookshop to a seaside cottage. (It is, if you are sufficiently motivated, and an angel.) They talk about their preferences in natural lighting (bad for books, but good for plants) and nearby restaurants, and whether the Bentley does or doesn't need its own garage. They don't talk about whether to live separately or together. It never occurs to them to need to.

"Husband," the humans often say instead, after that.

They never correct them. There is nothing to correct. There is nothing about the assumption that is, in any meaningful way, untrue. 

If they have never spoken the words, it is not because the words are false. It is not because they are frightening. It is not even because they're ineffable. They aren't. They could be spoken easily. 

But why bother? 

The sun rises in the morning, whether one describes it happening or not. It has for six thousand years. It will rise tomorrow, and rise again, and again, and again. They've helped to make certain of that.

They don't need to tell it to happen. All they need to do is enjoy their place in the light.


End file.
